Thursday, May 15, 2008

Corruption Bubbles Up Amid The Immigration ‘Crackdown’

Whenever you hear nativists like Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo wank
endlessly about "cracking down on illegal immigration," you always hear
them give lip service to the idea that they also have to crack down on
the people who are doing the hiring. That’s why Bush’s "immigration
crackdown," when announced, featured lots of talk about making employers toe the line too.

But this week’s immigration raids in Iowa –
like similar raids elsewhere — have made clear that this is all just a
lot of empty wank. The reality, as always, is that the impoverished
brown people are the only ones facing consequences.

So far, the chief employer involved in the raids, Agriprocessors
Inc., has not been charged with anything, nor have the plant’s managers
or owners been rounded up like cattle and herded into detention centers.

A top official at the Agriprocessors
Inc. plant in Postville that was the subject of an immigration
enforcement action Monday is an active Republican campaign contributor,
records show.

Sholom Rubashkin, whose family owns the company, since 2000 has made
$23,750 in federal campaign contributions, according to Federal Election
Commission records.
That includes $5,750 to the Republican Party of Iowa from 2002 through 2004.
Rubashkin also gave $2,000 to Rep. Tom Latham, an Ames Republican, in
2004; $1,500 to candidate William Dix in 2006; $3,000 to candidate Stan
Thompson from 2001 through 2004; $2,000 to Sen. Charles Grassley of New
Hartford in 2004; and $2,500 to former Rep. Jim Nussle in 2000 and
2002.

Grassley collected another $2,000 each from Abraham Rubashkin, Leah
Rubashkin and Ryfka Rubashkin, all of Postville, in August 2004.

To be fair, it seems that other plant officials have also given money to some Democrats.
But the fact remains that the people who should be joining the Latino
immigrants behind bars — and are not — are people with heavy GOP
connections. The Register story notes:

Rep. Bruce Braley, a Waterloo Democrat,
said there are hundreds of children in Postville whose lives will be
changed by the raid, and he wants to make sure they are a priority.
"If people have broken the law, there should be consequences," he
said. "I’ll be interested to see if federal authorities will be bringing
any charges against the employer."

We know that the Swift Company never
faced any charges after the raid in Marshalltown, and the enforcement of
immigration violations against corporations has plummeted during the
Bush administration. Until we enforce our immigration laws equally
against both employers and employees who break the law, we will continue
to have a problem with immigration.

Because there is an ongoing Iowa and
federal labor law violations investigation of Agriprocessors and the
union fears Rubashkin will use the raid to intimidate workers and throw
the next unionization vote.

Mark Lauritsen, International Vice President of the United Food and
Commercial Workers, wrote a May 2 letter to ICE: ICE action could result
in employees leaving the plant, interfering with a government
investigation that would “ultimately uncover unscrupulous employer
acts,” he said.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.